September of that year was clouded by the death of Charles. The old man had grunted on miserably all through the summer, and the doctor had given him up half a dozen times. Then one day, perversely, he collapsed just after Choake had made his most favorable report of the year, and died before he could be resummoned.
Ross went to the funeral, but neither Elizabeth nor Verity was there, both being ill. The funeral attracted a big attendance both of village and mining people and of the local gentry, for Charles had been looked on as the senior personage of the district and had been generally liked within the limits of his acquaintance.
Cousin William-Alfred took the service and, himself affected by the bereavement, preached a sermon that was widely agreed to be of outstanding quality. Its theme was “A Man of God.” What did the phrase mean, he asked? It meant to nourish those attributes in which Christ himself had been so conspicuous: truth and honesty, purity of heart, humility, grace, and love. How many of us had such qualities? Could we look into our own hearts and see there the qualities necessary to make us men and women of God? A time such as those, when we mourned the passing of a great and good man, was a time for self-inspection and a renewed dedication. It was true to say that in the loss of our dear friend Charles Poldark we marked the passing of a man of God. His way had been upright; he had never spoken an ill word. From him you grew to expect only kindness and the courtesy of the true gentleman who knew no evil and looked for none in others. The steady, unselfish leadership of a man whose existence was an example to all.
After William-Alfred had been talking in that vein for five minutes, Ross heard a sniff in the pew beside him and saw Mrs. Henshawe dabbing unashamedly at her nose. Captain Henshawe too was blinking his blue eyes, and several others were weeping quietly. Yes, it was a “beautiful” sermon, tugging at the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to such as Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men of deep insight like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, it was a special occasion… But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away?
William-Alfred was drawing to the end.
“My friends, we may fall far short of the example that is thus set before us. But in my Father’s house are many mansions, and there shall be room for all that believe. Equality of life, equality of opportunity are not for this world. Blessed are the humble and meek, for they shall see God. And He in His infinite wisdom shall weigh us all. Blessed are the poor, for they shall enter into heaven because of their poverty. Blessed are the rich, for they shall enter into heaven because of their charity. So in the hereafter there shall be one mighty concourse of people, all provided for after their several needs, all rewarded according to their virtues, and all united in the one sublime privilege of praising and glorifying God. Amen.”
There was a scraping of viols as the three musicians by the chancel steps prepared to strike up, the choir cleared their throats, and his son wakened Mr. Treneglos.
Ross accepted the invitation to return to Trenwith, hoping he might see Verity, but neither she nor Elizabeth came down. He did not stay longer than to drink a couple of glasses of canary, and then he made his excuses to Francis and walked home.
He was sorry he had not come straight back. The attitude of some of the mourners had a certain pained withdrawnness toward himself. Despite his own thoughts at the time of his marriage, he was unprepared for it, and he could have laughed at himself and at them.
Ruth Treneglos, née Teague. Mrs. Teague. Mrs. Chynoweth. Polly Choake. Quacking geese, with their trumpery social distinctions and their sham code of ethics! Even William-Alfred and his wife had been a little constrained. No doubt to them his marriage looked too much like the mere admission of the truth of an old scandal. Of course William-Alfred, in his well-intentioned way, took “the family” very seriously. Joshua had rightly called him its conscience. He liked to be consulted, no doubt.
Old Mr. Warleggan had been very distant, but that was more understandable. The episode of the courtroom rankled. So perhaps did Ross’s refusal to put the mine business through their hands. George Warleggan was far too careful of his manners to show what he felt.
Well, well. The whole of their disapproval added together didn’t matter an eyewink. Let them stew. As he reached his own land Ross’s annoyance began to leave him at the prospect of seeing Demelza again.
• • •
In fact, he was disappointed, for when he reached home Demelza had gone to Mellin Cottages, taking some extra food for Jinny and a little coat she had made for her week-old baby. Benjamin Ross, too, had been having trouble with his teeth and had had a convulsion the previous month. Ross had seen his two-and-a-half-year-old namesake recently and had been struck by the coincidence that Reuben’s knife had left a scar on the child’s face roughly similar to his own. He wondered if it would be remarked when the boy grew up.
He decided to walk over to Mellin in the hope of meeting Demelza on the way back.
He met his wife two hundred yards from the cottages. As always it was a peculiar pleasure to see her face light up, and she came running and hopping to meet him.
“Ross! How nice. I didn’t expect ’ee back yet.”
“It was indifferent entertainment,” he said, linking her arm. “I’m sure Charles would have been bored.”
“Shh!” She shook her head at him in reproof. “’Tis poor luck to joke about such things. Who was there? Tell me who was there.”
He told her, pretending to be impatient but really enjoying her interest. “That’s all. It was a sober crew. My wife should have been there to brighten it up.”
“Was—was Elizabeth not there?” she asked.
“No. Nor Verity. They are both unwell. The bereavement, I expect. Francis was left to do the honors alone. And your invalids?”
“My invalids?”
“Jinny and the infant.”
“Oh, they are well. A proper little girl. Jinny is well but very much down. She is listless-like and lacks poor Jim.”
“And little Benjy Ross and his teeth. What is the matter with the boy? Do they grow out of his ears?”
“He is much better, my love. I took some oil of valerian and told Jinny—told Jinny… What is the word?”
“Instructed?”
“No—”
“Prescribed?”
“Yes. I prescribed it for him like an apothecary. So many drops, so many times a day. And Jinny opened her blue eyes and said yes, ma’am and no, ma’am just as if I was really a lady.”
“So you are,” said Ross.
She squeezed his arm. “So I am. I forget, Ross. Anybody you loved, you would make a lady.”
“Nonsense,” said Ross. “The blame’s entirely yours. Have they heard anything of Jim this month?”
“Not this month. You heard what they heard last month.”
“That he was well, yes. For my part, I doubt it, but fine and good if it reassures them.”
“Do ’ee think you could ask someone to go and see him?”
“I’ve already done so. But no report yet. It is true that Bodmin is the best of a bad lot, for what consolation that maybe.”
“Ross, I been thinking—”
“What?”
“You told me I did ought to have someone else in to help in the house, to give me more time, like. Well, I thought to ask Jinny Carter.”
“What, and have three infants crawling about the house?”
“No, no. Mrs. Zacky could look after Benjy and Mary; they could play with her own. Jinny could bring her mite and sit ’er in a box in the sun all day. She’d be no trouble.”
“What does Jinny say?”
“I haven’t asked her. I thought to see what you said first.”
“Settle it between yourselves, my dear. I have no objection.”
They reached the top of the hill by Wheal Grace, and Demelza broke away from him to pick some blackberries. She put two in her mouth and offered him the choice of a handful. He took one absently.
“I too have been thinking. A good flavor this year. I too have been thinking. Now that Charles is gone, Verity is much in need of a rest. It would give me much pleasure to have her here for a week or two, to recuperate from all her nursing.”
They went down the hill. He waited for her to speak, but she did not. He glanced down at her. The vivacity had gone from her face and some of the color.
“Well?”
“She wouldn’t come—”
“Why do you say that?”
“All your family—they hate me.”
“None of my family hate you. They don’t know you. They may disapprove. But Verity is different.”
“How can she be if she’s one o’ the family?”
“Well, she is. You don’t know her.”
There was silence for the rest of the walk home. At the door they parted, but he knew that the discussion was not finished. He knew Demelza well enough to be sure that nothing but a clear-cut issue was ever satisfactory to her. Sure enough, when he went out to go to the mine she ran after him.
“Ross.”
He stopped. “Well?”
She said, “They think—your family thinks you was mad to marry me. Don’t spoil this first summer by asking one of ’em to stay here. You told me just now I was a lady. But I ain’t. Not yet. I can’t talk proper, and I can’t eat proper, and I’m always getting cagged wi’ dirt, and when I’m vexed I swear. Maybe I’ll learn. If you’ll learn me, I’ll learn. I’ll try all the time. Next year, maybe.”
“Verity isn’t like that,” Ross said. “She sees deeper than that. She and I are much alike.”
“Oh, yes,” said Demelza, nearly crying, “but she’s a woman. You think I’m nice because you’re a man. Tedn’t that I’m suspicious of her. But she’ll see all my faults and tell you about them and then you’ll never think the same again.”
“Walk with me up here,” Ross said quietly.
She looked up into his eyes, trying to read his expression. After a moment she began to walk beside him and they climbed the field. At the gate he stopped and leaned his arms on it.
“Before I found you,” he said, “when I came home from America, things looked black for me. You know why—because I’d hoped to marry Elizabeth and returned to find her with other plans. That winter it was Verity alone who saved me from… Well, I was a fool to take it so to heart—nothing is really worth that—but I couldn’t fight it at the time, and Verity came and kept me going. Three and four times a week all through that winter she came. I can’t ever forget that. She gave me something to hold on to; that’s hard to repay. For three years now I’ve neglected her shamefully, perhaps when she most needed me. She has preferred to stay indoors, not to be seen about. I have not had the same need of her; Charles was ill and she thought it her first duty to nurse him. But that can’t go on, now Charles is dead. Francis tells me she’s really ill. She must get away from that house for a change. The least I can do is to ask her here.”
Demelza rustled the dry stubble of barley stalks under her foot. “But why has she need of you? If she is ill, she needs a surgeon, that’s all. She’ll be the better looked after at—at Trenwith.”
“Do you remember when you first came here? A man used to call. Captain Blamey.”
She looked at him with eyes in which the pupils had grown dark. “No.”
“Verity and he were in love with each other. But Charles and Francis found that he had been married before; there were the strongest objections to his marrying Verity. Communication between him and Verity was forbidden and so they used to meet here secretly. Then one day Charles and Francis found them here and there was a violent quarrel, and Captain Blamey went home to Falmouth and Verity has not seen him since.”
“Oh,” said Demelza moodily.
“Her sickness, you see, is one of the spirit. She may be ill other ways too, but can I deny her the help that she gave me? To find a change of company, to get away from brooding, that may be half the battle. You could help her so much if you tried.”
“I could?”
“You could. She has so little interest in life, and you’re so full of it. You have all the zest for living, and she none. We have to help her together, my dear. And for this I want your willing help, with no grudging.”
On the gate she put her hand over his.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I feel angry-like, and then I go all small and mean. But of course I’ll do it, Ross. Anything you say.”